A Diary of Chuji's Travels

A Diary of Chuji’s Travels shows a great director identifying with his rebel protagonist by employing subtle humor and every subterfuge of cinematic invention to “capture” his audience; in short, it’s a knockout. Daisuke Ito was the first director to raise the genre of the outlaw hero to an avant-garde form, as critic and author Tadao Sato notes: “[Ito] combined adept storytelling with a rapid succession of images brimming with beauty and pathos, and the impassioned performance of his favorite lead, Denjiro Okochi.” Chuji’s outlaw society has the courtly elements of loyalty and betrayal, choreographed action and elegiac romance, all played out of doors and ragtag. This film was made as a triptych; what survives – an episode from the second part and about half of the third part, including the finale – conveys a full experience of the plot, mood, and motifs of the epic original, a principled but doomed antihero’s journey. —Judy Bloch